Here’s The Scoop: January Is A Big Month For Job Change [ And Here’s Why]

Here’s The Scoop: January Is A Big Month For Job Change [And Here’s Why]

Glassdoor just published their “Tipping Points” Survey. 18% of the workforce believes this month to be the most popular for a job search. This survey outlines why people are compelled, right now, to seek a new job. Here are the “last straw” reasons that are motivating employees to quit:

“The Work Was Boring” is the 3rd reason that drive people to seek new employment. As I outlined in the article Why Good People Quit Their Retail Company (And What Compels Them To Stay), I shared a statistic from The Aberdeen Group that states “Employees are 2x more likely to commit to their jobs when they are challenged and intrigued by their work”. It is clearly not a mystery, nor has the information been difficult to find, so why do we continue to allow good people with knowledge of the company and the industry leave because they aren’t challenged? As I see it, there are two reasons: (1) our retail organizations just simply don’t care if we are losing our talent or (2) we haven’t developed a process to open up a dialogue with our employees how we can better support their growth and contribution.

In my blog article Performance Appraisal Time, YAY! (Said No On, Ever) I included a series of questions to ask your team members quarterly to gauge their engagement and satisfaction with the organization and the work they are doing. Here are those questions:(1) As you make your way to work everyday, what are you most excited about?
(2) What is your favorite part of your job?
(3) What is your least favorite part of your job?
(4) What talents or skill do you have that we haven’t made the most of?
(5) How do you like working with the other employees that you interact with the most?
(6) What have you felt most proud of accomplishing recently?
(7) When is the last time (before this conversation) that you have been recognized for a contribution at work?
(8) What are you learning here? What would you like to learn more of?
(9) What opportunities for development would you like to have that go beyond your current role?
(10) If you could change one thing about your job, team, or company what would it be?

These questions – even if you only open up the dialogue with your top performers…the ones that would truly hurt the business if they left, you will ensure you are creating challenge and intrigue to keep your best, most productive employees.

Understanding the other issues that are the “tipping point” for employees will help you to focus on these pieces of the business as well:-35% left for a better salary
-23% needed a change
-20% geographically challenged
-18% didn’t approve of their boss
-14% didn’t like the culture
-13% poor benefits
-11% had a negative outlook on the company growth/direction
-9% had challenging working relationships

Most of these issues/concerns we can, as retail leaders, help assuage by offering fair salaries and benefits to top performers; by asking the right questions to ensure we are keeping them engaged; being a strong, supportive, accessible leader to your team; by being transparent and open in our communication about the state of the business; offering a consistently strong, engaging culture; and supporting healthy working relationships and active recognition programs that support peer relationships, respect, and encouragement.

When you consider the costs associated with employee turnover at all levels, it absolutely would benefit retail organizations to (a) understand the “tipping points” of their employees and (b) use that knowledge to ensure that all of the “frustrations” that cause our employees to feel obliged to seek new employment are addressed and resolutions that are beneficial and supportive of both the company and employees. Taking action on these known catalysts for job change can work hard to ensure we aren’t deliberately compelling our workforce to exit the business by giving us an opportunity to improve internal recruiting and retention programs.

These surveys are great to have because it can also help support job seekers in thoroughly researching retail organizations before accepting an offer of employment or even the opportunity to interview. It can help them connect with people through Social Media to get a true perspective from various employees of what to expect and if their needs will be met for a mutually beneficial working relationship.

Founder and Editor in Chief of Excellence In Retail and 18 year retailer. I am passionate about and committed to inspiring thought, action, truth-telling, solution-seeking, and dialog around how to maximize talent through identifying and creating a process around critical success factors, workplace culture, signature leadership practices, productivity, profitability, alignment of employees and company vision & values, and workplace happiness inside all retail organizations.